April 2013

04/25/2013

As a celebration of NFL draft week, The Big Mac Blog will look back at the best and worst of the Dallas Cowboys' draft history. We now continue with the good. The criteria is simple - the lower the expection, i.e. the selection, and the greater the return, the better pick.

5. Larry Brown, CB, TCU, 1991, 320th selectionLB may not have been the world's greatest defensive back, but for a man who was one of the last picks in the 1991 draft he was both productive and valuable on a level few ever see from this spot.

He played eight NFL seasons, intercepted 14 passes and returned two for touchdowns. Maybe he was the beneficiary of a Cowboys defense that abused so many, but he made plays.

Brown's biggest contribution came in Super Bowl XXX when he intercepted a pair of passes by Pittsburgh Steelers QB Neil O'Donnell in the second half.

The Steelers' trailed 13-7 in the third quarter and were around midfield. On third down, Brown intercepted a pass and returned it 44 yards, which set up an Emmitt Smith touchdown.

The Cowboys led 20-17 with 4:15 remaining in the game when the Steelers had the ball at their own 32. On second down, Brown picked off O'Donnell again and returned it 33 yards to the six-yard-line. Smith scored again to secure the Cowboys last Super Bowl win.

After this Super Bowl, Brown signed a five-year, $12.5 million contract with the Oakland Raiders that included a signing bonus of $3.5 million. It made him one of the highest paid DBs in the NFL at the time.

Brown's detractors said those Super Bowl picks were both gifts. They were right, but Brown was in the right place at the right time, didn't drop the ball, and posted big returns to set up two touchdowns that were vital to the win.

It never really clicked with the Raiders, where he was a bit exposed as a guy who wasn't a lock down corner. In two seasons in Oakland, he started just once and played 12 games before he was cut. He returned to the Cowboys in '98 where he played four games.

My dream of the UFC holding a massive, mega, jumbo, biggie-sized super fight between Anderson Silva and Georges St. Pierre at Cowboys Stadium appears just about all but dead. At least that's what GSP says.

It is my mission to annoy UFC president Dana White with the question of "When is the UFC coming to Cowboys Stadium?" until my death, or until it actually happens. White has maintained the only way to come to Cowboys Stadium is to have a super fight, and the potential matchup of Silva v. GSP would fit that description.

The weight difference between the two men may be too great for it to happen anyway.

"Anderson Silva is very big. He’s 230 pounds," GSP told Rogan. "He’s a very big guy, walking around very big and I’m 190 pounds. It’s a lot of weight difference. If this fight happens one day, we’re going to have to decide what weight class and everything."

BTW - GSP is 31 and weighs 170. And FYI - I look more like GSP, but fight more like Silva.

The next best alternative for a potential superfight involving Silva would be to include Jon Jones, who will fight Chael Sonnen on Saturday night in UFC 159. Jones is all set to replace Silva as the biggest, baddest fighter in the UFC, assuming he keeps winning (he's 17-1-0).

There is some good news to this dark cloud of no UFC at Cowboys Stadium just yet: It does appear that my guy, Johny "Bigg Rigg" Hendricks will get his shot at the title and fight GSP.

GSP told Rogan that he thinks his next opponent will be Hendricks, who is from Mansfield. Expect that fight to be this year.

04/24/2013

As a celebration of NFL draft week, The Big Mac Blog will look back at the best and worst of the Dallas Cowboys' draft history. We will start with The Bad:

1. Billy Cannon jr., LB, Texas A&M, 1983, 25th overall pickThe son of the famous Heisman winner from LSU, Cannon jr. is easily the biggest draft bust in Dallas Cowboys history. The Washington Redskins actually had Cannon as their desired pick.

Cannon never started a game, was credited with no tackles, and appeared in just eight games before an injury forced him to retire.

He would later sue the Dallas Cowboys, in a Louisiana court, for $9.6 million; he claimed he sustained the career-ending injury suffered in a game against the New Orleans Saints was based on negligence by the Cowboys.

Doctors had told Cannon he risked permanent paralysis if he continued to play after sustaining the injury. He claimed that he told doctors of numbness in his upper body after making tackles. The Cowboys doctors denied ever hearing such claims from Cannon.

The Cotton Bowl will also be a part of the rotation for the semifinal games as well with the other rich-kid bowls such as the Rose, Fiesta, Sugar, Orange, and Chick-fil-A.

(BTW - Hats off to the people that devised this playoff to name it just that - College Football Playoff. This name is not some post-modernistic art of simplicity. By not including tag 'NCAA' or anything else it can easily sell the naming rights to a corporate sponsor without having to share a dime with the organization based in Indianapolis.)

Now let's just hope that Fort Worth/dallas is not buried in snow and ice the way this region was when the Super Bowl came to town in 2011. While we're at it, let's hope that every paying customer actually has a seat to sit in to watch the game. And that nobody dies, either.

This will essentially give the people at Cowboys Stadium, and North Texas organizers, the chance to correct the many screwups that happened when the Super Bowl came to town. By the time the Unnamed Corporate Sponsor College Football Playoff Title game comes to Cowboys Stadium it will have hosted a Super Bowl, NBA All-Star game, NCAA Final Four, Cotton Bowls, among many others high-profile events.

All of these have gone well with the exception of that one Super Bowl, which was a horror show for event planners.

North Texas is not on the schedule to host another Super Bowl. Those already in the books are:2014: New York/New Jersey2015: Phoenix

The Super Bowl in 2016 will be the 50th, and that will likely be in an area that has a tradition of hosting the big game at the end. Think South Florida.

If the College Football Playoff title game goes well, enough time will have passed since that fiasco in '11 that Jerry should enough street cred' to host the Super Bowl again.

Before we delve into the new opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum and Learning Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good, it's important to note there is a museum for the greatness that is former Vice President J. Danforth Quayle.

The great state a Texas will now lead the country in presidential library/museums - (Bush I, Bush II, LBJ). Eat it, California!

George W. Bush will be the 13th president to have a library/museum to honor his life. This will be the 15th presidential library/museum; President's Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon have their respective libraries and museums in different locations (just a bit self important).

Regardless of what you think of Dubya or his policies, the respective Presidential museums are must-see visits. Even the one for Jimmy Carter in Atlanta is great. These are not one-sided smooch fests for the President's tenure. They are an honest look at the times, the change and the events that defined that four or eight year period.

If you have to pick one, find the time period that was most eventful - I have been told Ike's museum/library in Abilene, Kansas is outstanding because it contains so much about World War II.

As a celebration of NFL draft week, The Big Mac Blog will look back at the best and worst of the Dallas Cowboys' draft history. We will start with The Bad:

2. David LaFleur, TE, LSU, 1997, 22nd overall pickTroy Aikman could not wait to pass it to LaFleur, who was going
to replace Jay Novacek. Yeah .... that didn't quite take.

LaFleur was hurt all the time in his
four years and caught 85 passes for 729 yards with 12 TDs. In 1999, his third year in the league, it looked as if he may break out as he caught 35 passes with seven TDs.

But the next season he battled injuries that he never could escape. As a player, he was a bit slow and was never able to command the type of presence in the middle of the field that Novcek did.

LaFleur was probably more of a fourth of fifth round type of talent whose career ended too soon because of injuries.

Had a good laugh at the Tweet by Fort Worth Star-Telegram TCU beat writer Stefan Stevenson; he said he would cover TCU's game against LSU naked if Casey Pachall isn't the starting quarterback.

Stefan (pictured) should do it anyway, just to liven up a dull pressbox.

Simple nudity by a beat writer ain't enough - if Casey Pachall is in good standing with the team and he is not the starting quarterback for TCU against LSU on 8/31 at Cowboys Stadium the head coach should be fired and replaced by Pat Sullivan.

All of this talk about the quarterback race between Casey Pachall and Trevone Boykin being tight is laughably stupid. Either that or Casey Pachall is suddenly terrible (he isn't), or Trevone is suddenly Dan Marino (he isn't).

On a conference call with Big 12 head coaches today, TCU head coach Gary Patterson said he will likely name the starting QB during two-a-day practices. He was not laughing when he said this.

"That race with the quarterback is very close. One beats you with his arm and one beats you with his legs," Patterson said.

If Casey Pachall didn't think he was going to be the starter he should have transferred to another school where he could start 11 or 12 games. He needs to play to have any shot at a real pro career.

"He's a little rough around the edges," GP said today of Pachall. "He always had a Josh Boyce as a go-to guy and he's not there. And establishing who he is throwing to and what he is doing and getting him more familiar with the young receivers on the team."

While there is not a soul around TCU's program who is not grateful for what Boykin did last season, and believes that he will be an effective QB, no one says he is better than Pachall. The QB who can beat you with his legs averaged 3.3 yards per carry last season; of note, the stats do not include how many sacks he avoided.

Pachall can make throws to places Boykin simply never demonstrated he could. Boykin never gained the trust of his head coach to make throws into crowded areas.

That said, there is a level of expecation surrounding Pachall's return that may not be quite warranted.

As good as he is, he has not faced the level of competition that Boykin has. The only Big 12 team Pachall faced was Kansas, which is in the conference because of its basketball program. The only teams Boykin has faced are big ones.

Pachall hasn't done it against the "big people" yet. The safe bet is that he can, and the sure money is that he will be starting against LSU. If not, Stefan is going to be naked in the Cowboys press box and the head coach should be fired.